Sometimes we have a hard time tuning in our lives, as though we are passing through a magnetic anomaly or concentrating our physical self in an area that could be a place considered opposite of where a lei line would be, permeating bad ju-ju. So during these times we’re a bit like those old TV’s we had with the rabbit ears; the ones we had to keep messing with in order to get even a partial picture on the set. But mostly the channels that came in were simply static–that crackly white noise, which blurred in front of our faces with maybe some echo of a scene behind the black and white lines squiggling on the box in front of us.

Try as we might to move the antennae around (or physically pick them up in desperation), and add aluminum foil to the end to extend their reach, we’d barely see much, only once in a while–if we were lucky and the weather patterns cooperated. Then lo and behold, an image would form and we could watch the world play out in front of our eyes. We’d sit frozen, captured and greedy because finally everything was in focus–if only for a moment we were mesmerized.

I pass through these moments of clarity where my world feels in focus. Where I feel I have tuned my antennae correctly for once and that I am standing in a place of great rightness. I, too, stop and stare, because it is unusual and crisp and clear. It feels odd at these times, like not quite my self, but more ethereal ready to disappear back into the scrambled and distorted reality I’ve become used to passing through. It is a stunning feeling and gives me pause. At these times I feel outside reality.

So when these times of sharpness come; when the world appears more brilliant and the fuzzy noises that threaten those flickering frames where we see things distinctly are suddenly quiet, it gives hope for one day having a steady stream of these moments. Is it finding the lei line and absorbing its energy? And once there, adjusting the rabbit ears permanently in the position of the clearest existence.

Note: To rid ourselves of today’s sadness we must seek a moment here and there: in nature, with family and friends, with animals, within transcendence, inside ourselves, creating, in silence…however. Blessed be.

“In the right place, under the right conditions, you can finally stretch out into what you are supposed to be. ” — Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

How long do we wait for the right place and the right conditions? It may seem to some of us that we take a long time to stretch out; that we spend much of our lives contorted and bursting apart just to come together again. I have.

The right conditions seem to involve some sort of special magic; a particular brew that mixes together to concoct the spell where the microcosm in which we move feels easy and the skin that we wear no longer needs tailoring.

Some folks that we meet seem to have been born with this magic as they whirl around with the twinkling Universe hovering nearby. But most of us aren’t so lucky. Some of us seek it, but I see now this maybe isn’t how it works. It may be more like how a seed turns into a tree. It’s just dumb luck. It just waits encased in its shell until all the conditions are perfect and then bursts forth into the world.

But most don’t get this far.

Maybe I’ve just tried too hard to make everything happen. Can I be more like that seed? Just quietly sitting on the forest floor gathering the magic conditions to crack me open. Will I be one of the lucky ones?

And once I am that wonderful entity, crawling with life and fluttering with each breath of wind, my roots firmly reaching in all directions: then I will know I am who I am supposed to be.